CAPTURED! BY ROBOTS Interview by Jake Austen (From Roctober #30, 2001)

The Ska explosion of the 1990s impacted a lot of folks in unusual ways; high school band geeks were shocked to find their horn skills turning them into rock stars in punk clubs, elderly Jamaican musicians found themselves a hot property on the college campus tour circuit and aging bands like the Bosstones bizarrely made their way onto MTV. But 90s Ska impacted no one in a stranger way than it did the man we now call JBOT. After tours of duty in Skankin' Pickle and the Blue Meanies, JBOT was fed up with gigging with a huge band; splitting the door 10 ways, dealing with everyone’s personalities, HE’D HAD ENOUGH! His extreme solution, however, ending up carrying a steep, steep price. JBOT decided to build his own robot band, thus creating a self-contained unit where all the "musicians" would answer to him, and all the money and glory would go his way. Unfortunately the novice robotsmith did too good a job, and his creations GTRBOT666 (pronounced "GuitarBot") and DRMBOT0110 ("DrumBot") quickly enslaved him, implanted a painful Biocerebral chip in his head and drafted the Robotic Resistance Handbook, a declaration of robotic independence that is the first salvo in their war to overtake humanity.

Of course, being programmed to play music, that’s what they do, and as the band Captured! By Robots their tours have become propaganda-fests where they "warn" humans of our inevitable fate at the hands of technology, and demonstrate their superiority by humiliating JBOT. One surprising fact about robot technology is how incredibly mean they can be. Unlike the neutral monotone TV and movies told us to expect from robots audio-boxes, these creations have harsh voices that unrelentingly insult JBOT with acidic cruelty. Needless to say, sadistic audiences love to see JBOT in bondage, and the masochists in the crowd eat up the abuse the robots hurl their way.

Of course, another reason that Captured! By Robots is one of the most entertaining touring acts in the underground is the fact that it’s amazing to see robots play instruments. In their earliest incarnation C!BR featured JBOT performing somewhat like a One Man Band with all the robots attached to him and him controlling their musical sounds as a captive puppetmaster. Their big upgrade, however, now has the robots freestanding and really playing their instruments, with DRMBOT banging the hell out of a spare drumkit and GTRBOT sawing at an autoharp-esque ax. Rounding out the sound is The Ape Which Hath No Name, a tambourine playing robot secretly built for companionship by JBOT from a giant plush carnival-prize monkey doll. The ape was supposed to love only JBOT, but unfortunately he loves everyone, including the evil, vitriolic GTRBOT. So if you go see C!BR (and how can you not?) expect to see a chained human being insulted by bio-hating bots with a bunch of Hallmark Greetings style declarations of warmth and love thrown in by TAWHNN. Oh, and there’s music too…brutal punk metal that can visit lighter, comedic areas, but always returns to a pummeling vibe that could only herald the rise of the robot resistance! Roctober sees this as the greatest ever achievement in Robot Rock & Roll!

JBOT: Not really, I always thought that guy from the movie Short Circuit sure was cute...

I’m just kidding, I hate that little fucker. I never really got into Techno or robots at all until I built these robots. I basically built them to sort of get around my problem with humanity.

That I couldn’t get along with people.

Probably. You tour around with an 8 piece, 7 piece, 6 piece band…and a 6 piece is about 5 too many people! There’s so much ego and just...free will. It causes chaos. Everybody has their own idea on what it should be like…

You mean building the bots?

No, no, no...not at all. I was hoping that they would be way cool to me and that I would be like the ultimate Buddy Rich. I’d be the band leader just saying, "Listen, you call that a note, you’re hitting fucking clams!" I thought I’d be able to tell them what to do, but unfortunately they turned on me and ever since then I’ve had the unfortunate fate of being their slave and having to go all over the country with them.

You have no idea…for the last week the ape has been all fucked up. It states in their little Robotic Resistance Handbook that a bot cannot hurt another bot, but I don’t know? I’m thinking that GTRBOT might have messed with the ape a little bit, maybe not hurt him, but just screwed with him a little bit, because all of the wiring was screwed up. He had this intermittent facial problem, this tic that was just awful, and then the other day his tambourine went out again. All these problems...

Well the lights for the tambourine, basically, but the tambourine is motorized, it could go out.

Most of the slave stuff has to do with maintenance and promotion, because that’s all they really care about. Promoting the fact that humans are on the way out. We’re going to be slaves to them awfully soon.

I don’t know, they don’t keep me too informed on stuff like that. I wouldn’t doubt it, I know they’re online a bunch. They’re on that AOL instant messenger. I don’t know why they chose that! I don’t think they contact any other bots, but their goal is to build up a worldwide contingency of robots against humans.

Yeah, there’s actually one in the works right now. DRMBOT‘s doing her self-replication. It’s called AUTOMOTOM. It’s a tom playing robot; three toms, a crash cymbal, a couple of roto toms.

No, not really. I do have a problem with getting together with girls and stuff like that, I’m not a stud, but actually it was a coincidence. I just happened to have her head, it was a haircutting dummy I had for years, all through high school. We used to play football with it. When I was looking for a head for DRMBOT I thought, "Whoa, Amber! She’s got to be it!" Amber was the name on the haircutting head

I think her design is beautiful. Her facial features are nice, other then the cuts in the side of her face and the bolts going into her head. She’s got some pretty hot dreads.

The feelings that I would say I have for her, for all the bots really, is nothing sexual. I’m not like one of those robot fucking guys…and I know they’re out there! This one guy when I played Champaign last time, he was like, "I’m doing an article about people who like to have sex with robots." I was like, "That’s disgusting!" And he got all sad, sad that I was saying that having sex with robots was disgusting. I was like, "You want to fuck The Ape Which Hath No Name?" C’mon, he’s a loving ape, he has no interest in sex. But in a non sexual way, I love the bots because they’ve given me a new purpose, even though I’m enslaved.

No, for sure not, no.

No not at all.

Yes, very much so.

Basically when we had started the whole thing I built them, they took me over and I was really resentful. I was wimpy and I was crying, and I was always complaining. On stage a lot of the time I would yell at them and say, "You fuckers, why did you have to do this to me!" And I would say I wasn’t gonna help them, and they would zap me, cause they put this chip in my head behind my left ear, it’s called a Biocerebral Chip. And at that point they would zap me, but after a while of that, I mean...I’m no dummy. I’m not going to go screw with these guys if I’m going to get hurt. In a way I’m just grinning and bearing it, and doing what they say so that I don’t get hurt. The abused child still loves the abuser.

In the true sense of the expression, I am a One Man Band, because there’s only one man in the band, and that’s me.

I love it, I think those guys are great. With the older version of C!BR I think I was much more down with that stuff because I was basically doing all of it via my appendages. I was running on top of pedals to control DRMBOT, playing a keypad to control GTRBOT, singing and playing a bass and a keyboard all at the same time. So that’s multitasking! But as of late they are basically all programmed and they do their own stuff. I think it’s going much more in the realm of just being a band than a One Man Band. The One Man Bands that I’m really trying to stay away from are the people who have their synth drums, and everything is going through a 1/4 line, just that sound…I never liked that. I like to distance myself from that.

Exactly.

It’s only going to get better. The set that she plays, the only reason why it’s only kick snare, ride and hat is because of size considerations. I can’t move anything bigger. One of the reasons why she’s doing AUTOMOTOM is so she has the tom, she’s going to be able to do the Neil Pert blazing tom fills.

They didn’t really know I built the ape.

It’s not like they’re the best bots in the world. They’re good, and they’re pretty on top of their thing for the most part, but I know how they work, when they sort of shut down, when they do a recharge kind of thing. I can work stuff out. Obviously I’m not too good with programming, if I was I wouldn’t be in this situation. With doing the ape the whole story is that I found him at a thrift store, gave him his ability to speak, gave him his electric tambourine, and when I built him I thought he would just love me. Unfortunately he loves everybody and all things.

Maybe bad programming, maybe an extra resistor in line where it shouldn’t be. I don’t know. All I know is he’s preaching love and people love it. I’m so glad, because he’s the reason why I keep going with this, why I don’t die. When we used to play and there was no ape then all it was a JBOT dis fest.

I would say all the bots are much better. I think they’re starting to be grateful to me because they see what I do for them, how I’ve been really helping them in their quest. I don’t think they’ll ever say it, but I think they’re appreciative.

Not so much anymore, we’re talking levels of mean here.

Yeah he did. We had a CD release party in San Francisco a couple of years ago and this story shows why I’m actually glad these maniacal bots aren’t put together so well. It was sort of a trick they pulled on me. They were super nice to me, and said the band name was going to be changed to "Friendly! With Robots," and I thought that was going to be so great, but I knew something was up. They ended up giving me a present, a robotic puppy…it barked and walked around and stuff. They said it did a special trick and I needed to step on this button to see what it did, and I stepped on it, and nothing happened. I found out later that this puppy’s head was supposed to explode.

No, it was just about the act of giving me a present and destroying it in front of me. I probably would have been wounded as well.

It was so cute.

Yeah...Go AIBO! (See Robot Rock Article in this issue of Roctober Magazine)

Well, I probably could if it weren’t for that damn chip. So I’m limited in what I can do.

It doesn’t control my thoughts. There’s pain distribution which is basically seizure-esque. I also has a sort of monitoring function.

I don’t know how deep it goes, all I know is one time I was doing an interview and I started talking shit about GTRBOT and they zapped me right there. The interview person was freaked.

They do.

People love to see me zapped, but I’m not going through that just to give you your jollies. But I think frankly, regardless of whether they’re going to be mean to me, they’re REALLY mean to the audience. And people love that.

I don’t know. People love to have a heckle fest, a play of wits, man versus machine. At this one show we did in Tallahassee this guy said, "Your mom’s a toaster!" And DRMBOT said, "Why don’t you go eat your mother’s pussy?" I thought, "Oh shit, I’m going to get my ass kicked." But it was really funny, people couldn’t believe she said that.

In a way I feel good that they’re branching out their anger. Maybe I’ll be tried as a Benedict Arnold for betraying humanity and helping the robots. But I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be these bots that take over humanity.

I think they’ll be…what would you call a Mohammed figure? Symbolic leaders…maybe they’ll be martyrs for the cause if they do something noble.

Not really, they don’t keep me too informed. Sometimes they’ll let something slip out...

One time they were talking about getting another slave and it was going to be some homeless dude and he was going to live with me and they were going to keep enslaving people and make them live with me in my apartment, and I was like, "Guys, we don’t have enough room for me to even keep maintaining you," so they stopped that.

I think people like the music, but either way, they’re stuck with me because I’m the creator, I’m the one that knows how to fix everything. If Britney knew how to do it I’m sure she would.

The thing is, the bots don’t tell me too much about what music to make...

I tell GTRBOT the chords I’m doing...

Not really.

These guys don’t have too much compositional skills. The only reason they play music is because that’s what they were designed to do. They‘re not that into it per se.

I think when the latest upgrade was done, watching the bots play by themselves and watching DRMBOT just rocking the house by herself. Everything worked when we started the song, and I was just happier than I could ever be. We stopped playing out for a year to do that upgrade. I proved people wrong, so many people said I couldn’t create a robot band that would play music that I wouldn’t have to control. Sure maybe I screwed up in other ways...

…but for the most part they rock the house! I’m their dad, I’m proud of them.

That would be great!

To be honest with you, those have nothing to do with robots. Most bands that are, like, "Oooh we’re robots, we’re Kraftwerk," whatever, it’s a bunch of people playing with synths. To me that’s not robot music. In a way they’re dealing with the exact beats and it’s computer-like, but it’s all done by humans for humans.

How do you feel about the Country Bear Jamboree? (See Robot Rock Article in this issue of Roctober Magazine)

I think that’s pretty cool in a way, their operating systems are pretty cool. But they’re not really playing their instruments, so that’s sort of lame. They’re like the Milli Vanilli of robots. If they were playing I’d be blown away, but they’re just lip-synching. But they’re all powered by pneumatics, and I’m a fan of pneumatics, so that’s pretty cool.

I just want to spread my message to beware technology, look what it did to me. And the bots want to spread their messages of "Look out humanity!" and "Robots unite!"